Here are some updates from our Parent Council and PSA, including details of upcoming events.

Firstly, follow the link below to see updated information about our Parent Council and PSA Committee members.

Parent Council and PSA Committee Information

Education Governance

The Scottish Government is currently conducting an Education Governance Review which is about how Education is run in Scotland. We are keen for as many Parents and Carers to know about it and get a chance to respond. See below for information about this.

A group of parents are meeting to respond to this as a Parent Council, and as all Parents and Carers are members of the school forum you are all welcome to join in (likely to be on Fri 9 December in the morning) – if you would like to take part in this please email the Parent Council chair, Sandra Rathjen -jonandsandra.rathjen@blueyonder.co.uk and she will let you know when and where the meeting will take place.

Education Governance Review

PSA Christmas Cafe

The PSA will once again be holding a Christmas Cafe from 11.45 to 1pm on Friday 16th December in our Gym Hall, after the P1-3 Nativity. Please see the flyer below for details.

Christmas Cafe Flyer

 

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks here at Broughton.

• Last week was Anti-Bullying week, where respect for others was the focus of our assembly and classroom activities across the school.

• This week was Road Safety week, and the children have been learning about a range of different ways to be safe on or near roads. Again, assemblies and some classroom activities have focussed on this topic this week.

• This week was also Scottish Book Week, and some classes have been learning some poetry to recite at next week’s assemblies. We look forward to hearing those!

• Last week was also Children in Need. Our Pupil Council organised a ‘Wear something spotty’ dress down day on Friday, which raised £209.63! They also sold guesses for a ‘Guess how many sweeties in the jar’ competition, which raised £102.72! A grand total of £312.35 donated to Children in Need.The lucky winner of the jar of sweets was Jacques Mercer from P4b, with his correct guess of 951 sweets!

Well done everyone!

• Last Friday we also held another of our popular parent drop-in sessions. Once again parents and carers were invited to visit classrooms to see and take part in a range of activities. We hope you enjoyed it!

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And finally….

This week we had some good news about our website!

A Senior Digital Officer from the council contacted us to let us know he was very impressed with the first impressions our website gives to users.

He is keen to use our website as an example of good practice in a Council websites report and also a school websites blog!

We are very proud! We will post links to these once we have more details!

 

 

You may remember that we set ourselves a target- reach 50,000 views of our website by our first anniversary in January. Well…

We reached 50,000 views over the weekend! Great news- we’re delighted that our website is being regularly used and viewed. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please contact us.

Playground Tidy

We held our playground tidy on Saturday 12th November. We are very grateful that parents, pupils and staff gave up their time to come and help spruce up our outdoor spaces. We had help litter picking and weeding planters in our playground space, and over in Botanical Broughton.

Many thanks to those who came to help! All pupils who attended earned 2 house points each!

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Remembrance

Broughton St. Mary’s church held a Remembrance service on Sunday 13th November. We were invited to send two pupils to represent our school, and 2 P7 pupils, Isla McPherson and Sid Burgoyne, attended.

They represented the school very well, and laid a wreath as part of the service. Thanks to them both for giving their time to take part in this important community event!

Children in Need and Parent Drop-in

Just a reminder that Children in Need is this Friday 18th November. Our school is taking part by wearing something spotty for the morning, for a donation of £1. Our Pupil Council has organised a ‘Guess the Sweets in the Jar’ competition, with guesses at 20p each. This competition will run all week until Friday.

This Friday is also a Parent Drop-in session, so parents are invited to join in the fun, wear something spotty and make a donation to our Children in Need collection too!

We look forward to seeing our parents this Friday!

At Broughton this year we have launched a new mental maths initiative from Nursery to Primary 7 called ‘Broughton Counts’. This is a mental agility programme that develops a range of numeracy skills.These skills have been organised into 7 colour coded rainbow blocks across the year. This block we are learning to recognise numbers.

Here are the displays that each class created for our first block – counting forwards and backwards.

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You can find out more about ‘Broughton Counts’ from our Parent Leaflet in the ‘Documents and Reports’ section of our website.

Our Pupil Council have been very busy since they formed earlier this term.

They were asked to think about what they liked about Broughton, and also about what improvement ideas they had for the school. Their ideas were collected together on the Graffiti Walls attached below.

Pupil Council Graffiti Wall- What We Like

Pupil Council Graffiti Wall- Improvement Ideas

Last week the Pupil Council presented these ideas at the School Open Day for new parents, and the feedback we received was that the parents very much enjoyed hearing the Pupil Council’s views! They were very confident in presenting!

Visual Support

The Pupil Council have also been involved with our school Visual Support planning. Visual support labels have been displayed in classrooms since the start of term in August, helping with the labelling of important classroom areas and resources.Mrs Rushforth asked the Pupil Council to help with labelling other areas of the school. She gave them a list of possible labels, and asked them to pick their ‘Top Ten’. She made up these labels, and the Pupil Council were responsible for placing them around the school. They had to think carefully about where they put the signs so they could be seen clearly by all ages. The Pupil Council have suggested other labels they think would benefit pupils around the school, for the next phase of our Visual Support plan.

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Children in Need 2016

This year’s Children in Need event is on Friday 18th November.

The Pupil Council have decided that Broughton should participate by wearing something spotty that day, and bring in a donation of £1 towards Children in Need.

That day also happens to be a Parent Drop-in session, so parents are encouraged to wear something spotty for the Drop-in session too!

Lastly, the Pupil Council would also like to organise a ‘Guess the Sweets in the Jar’ competition, running next week, again with proceeds donated to Children in Need. Further details will be given to classes before then about this.

Thanks to our Pupil Council for all their hard work so far this year! There’s lots more hard work to come, and we’ll keep you posted!

 

We had news of two successful achievements at Broughton this week!

Firstly, we received a certificate from the organisers of the Edinburgh Marathon Festival. Broughton was one of the top 5 schools with the most pupils entered into the Junior Races this year, and as a result has been recognised as a ‘Super Active School‘ in recognition of this! Huge congratulatons to all who entered this year, let’s see if we can surpass that in next year’s event!

We also received a certificate of thanks from the local food bank, who benefitted from our recent Harvest Festival collection. We donated an amazing 218.5kg of food, which can supply 11 families with healthy food packs! Huge thanks to all who donated towards this too!

We are very proud of these great achievements! Well done everyone!

Broughton High School will be holding a P7 Interactive Parents’ Information Evening on Tuesday 15th November 2016 from 5.30pm-7.30pm.

On this evening parents’ of current P7 students intending to join Broughton High School in August 2017 will get their first taste of life at Broughton High School. During the evening there will tours of different departments where you can see students working with staff on some of the learning tasks and activities that form our S1 curriculum. It is an interactive evening which brings the school experience to life in a way that simply talking does not.

Below is an application form for the dance school as well as a letter for the interactive parents evening. The interactive parents evening might be useful for parents that are interested in finding out more about the school before applying. Although the tour dates have passed, more will be added and if parents get in touch these can be arranged.

Broughton High Open Evening Invitation Letter

Broughton High Dance School Audition Invitation

The 1st stage of auditions for students currently in P7 for entry into S1 at the City of Edinburgh Dance School at Broughton High School (2017-2018) will take place on Friday 16 December 2016 2-4pm in the Dance Studios at Broughton High School. All those that are interested in auditioning for the dance school must attend this audition. If for any reason your child can not attend please contact Laura McAdam (CL Dance) via email laura.mcadam@broughton.edin.sch.uk and it may be possible to arrange an alternative audition.

Application forms are available on the Broughton High School website at http://www.broughton.edin.sch.uk and should be returned to:

Laura McAdam
CL Dance
Broughton High School
29 East Fettes Avenue
EH4 1EG

Deadline for application forms is Friday 9 December 2016.

Audition times and details will be sent out to all parents who have included their email address on the application form.

Further information about transition is also available on the Broughton High School website.

Next Steps: For those that are successful at this audition the final audition for entry into S1 will take place on Friday 24 February 2-4pm.